Sad to hear that Marty Zweig passed away today at 71 years of age. Far too young for such an iconic figure. I will never forget watching Wall $treet Week with Louis Rukeyser in 1987 when Zweig said that he was deeply worried and did not like what he saw in the stock market. Three days later the stock market crashed. They say you always remember your first time. Well, during my professional investment career I’ve been through 3 major stock market crashes and I can remember the ’87 crash like it was yesterday. I can still see in my mind’s eye Mary Zweig’s appearance on Rukeyser’s TV show that day. Funny what you remember.
But the experience has served me well. In 2008 the market just didn’t feel right, didn’t look right, didn’t act right. In the bond market crazy things were going on. The Mortgage Back and CMO markets were just stupid expensive. Amy Mathews and I decided to dump our MBS portfolio. At the end of our fiscal year on June 30th our total exposure to Lehman Brothers was about $500 Million in corporate bonds, CMOs and Repos (and that was down substantially from our highest exposure to Lehman). By the time the sh… stuff hit the fan our total exposure was down to $40 Million, and we have since recovered our share of that.
Thank you Marty Zweig for a lesson learned. It has served me well.
John Broussard
Assistant State Treasurer
Chief Investment Officer
State of Louisiana
Department of the Treasury
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